Soon after the news spread about Elizabeth Taylor’s death, obituaries started being posted on the Internet.
Rather than being a conventional obituary this brief post looks instead at her connections with Italy and fashion.
Born in England in 1932, Taylor moved with her family to Los Angeles before the beginning of World War II, in the late 1930s.
Starring in her first roles as a child in the ‘40s, Taylor rose to celebrity in the ‘50s.
Despite she incarnated the perfect Hollywood icon, becoming in later years a symbol of the American movie industry, I associate her in my mind with the glorious years of the Italian film industry, that period of time in which Rome was dubbed the “Hollywood on the Tiber”.
Taylor shot in Rome Cleopatra by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who directed her also in Suddenly, Last Summer. The actress actually got a million-dollar contract to star in this film (a first for an actress…).
Cleopatra featured elaborate costumes and complicated sets. Men’s costumes were created by Vittorio Nino Novarese, while Renié Conley (1901-1992), a Hollywood costume designer who created elegant outfits for many stars, including Ginger Rogers, designed the women’s costumes.
Fashion illustrator turned costume and set designer Irene Sharaff - famous for her work on the 1931 Broadway production of Alice in Wonderland and on The King and I (1951) - created instead the costumes for Elizabeth Taylor (Cleopatra actually won the Oscar for its costumes in 1964).
Famous for her beauty, flawlessly symmetrical face and violet eyes, Taylor often turned the characters she portrayed on the screen into a mirror image of her own life.
When it came out in 1963 the $40 million epic Cleopatra almost bankrupted 20th Century Fox, since it wasn’t that successful.
Yet the film became very famous as Taylor (married to Eddie Fisher) and Richard Burton (married to Sybil Williams) met and fell in love with each other on its set.
Their passion for life and for extravagant excesses became quickly the focus of many gossip magazines of the times.
Taylor and Burton were often spotted visiting Bulgari (they seemed to love precious gems - Taylor’s jewellery collection included indeed a 69.42-carat Cartier diamond and the 33.19-carat Krupp diamond; in 2002, the actress published My Love Affair With Jewelry, a coffee-table memoir told through her most beautiful jewellery pieces), or spending time in the Rome-based fashion houses.
Among the ateliers Taylor visited there was also the Fontana Sisters’.
Many actresses – among them Ava Gardner – who visited the atelier seemed to end up having a friendly relationship with the three sisters, becoming quite open and often revealing them their secret love stories.
From Micol Fontana, the last living Fontana sister, we know that Taylor used to ask the sisters to give her tips about how to match specific colours and how to wear particular styles.
The third image in this post was taken at the Fontana atelier, the dress Taylor is wearing in this image is currently showcased at the Fondazione Micol Fontana in Rome.
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